Author's Note: Come on people, don't be shy! Why am I the only one commenting on my own works? Are they so bad that they don't even allow the simple validation of a flame? I take everything people, SERIOUSLY!
The obligatory family dinner was nothing to sneeze at. There was all manner of food, which was all delicious, and even more so because nobody knew what it was, except Fabrizio, and for once he was kind enough not to say anything that would make them all lose their appetites. They sat at a long oval table made of dark varnished wood, each in a chair of their own preferred style, and chattered about how they thought school would be.
The sleepless night, however, they could all have done without. They would need their rest for catching the train in the morning, but somehow, that wasn't happening. Finally Cinnamon had the idea to encase them all in the nonmelting and unbreakable ice crystals only she could make, which would evaporate upon her mental command. That would keep them rested up for the night.
When they woke up, it was two hours before the train was scheduled to leave. Brassi, ever the do-gooder, was ever so worried about being late. "Oh, don't worry about it," snapped Cinnamon finally, getting fed up with her sister. "Even if we miss the train, what do you think our wings are for?" For everybody in the Starling family had giant wings, either like a bird's or like a bat's; the birds' wings that the females had were their owners' favorite color. Cinnamon's were the exact shade of blue as the Heart of the Ocean in her all-time favorite movie, Titanic; Brassi's were bright fuchsia; Lucy's were fiery red-orange; Fleur's were silvery ice-blue; and Setsuna's were a regular green. Fabrizio's wings were the bat kind, and they were black.
By some work of God (or perhaps Loki or Anubis or some other guy), they were able to get to the station on time, albeit crankily (as predicted). Fabrizio had made it off to Durmstrang already in some mysterious way not explained in the original books and therefore not explained here, but the transcriber thinks it has something to do with a ship. Fabrizio doesn't like water and was therefore most likely seasick. The girls who were stuck at Muggle school had stayed at home without adult supervision and will therefore be gone for the rest of the story unless the transcriber finds some way to make them randomly pop up again.
Setsuna had decided to go mingle with some snobbish-looking blond wizards, leaving her twin daughters to find Platform Whatever-Strange-Fraction-Number-It-Was on their own. They wouldn't have, except a very loud woman with frizzy red hair was complaining about it.
"It's the same every year, Platform 9 3/4..." she was saying. Oh right. THAT was the number.
"Excuse me," shouted a scrawny shrimp with a mop of black hair and pale eyes hidden behind totally unstylish glasses.
"Us too," shouted Cinnamon, "Us too! We want to find the platform too!" Brassi tsked at her sister's unladylike behavior, but Cinnamon just turned around and stuck out her tongue. Take that, priss.
The following two or three minutes were a blur, but the point is that they did eventually find the platform. After the older boys demonstrated how to get on and the sisters had to listen to the ten-year-old girl complain about not being able to go, Cinnamon spread her wings just to show off (she was wearing a backless dress and could thus get away with spreading her wings without ripping her clothes) and flew through the barrier. Brassi tsked again and walked tentatively toward the barrier, bonking into it and falling back, before shutting her eyes and running through it.
"That was so easy," said Cinnamon. "Did you see the look on Shrimp Boy's face--" as Shrimp Boy passed them. "Oh hi," said Cinnamon, only slightly embarrassed. "How old are you, kid? You look way too young to be going to Hogwarts. Don't you have to be eleven? Of course, I don't have to go. My sister and I only need something to do to pass the time while we're here in England. By all rights we should --" Brassi elbowed Cinnamon.
"Oh right. I'm Cinnamon. This is my sister Brassi. One of many, but she's the only other girl old enough to get in. Who're you?"
"My name is Harry Potter," said the boy. Cinnamon blinked, then frowned.
"Oh yeah, the great curse-survivor," she said with a trace of sarcasm. "Hey, enjoy your life while it lasts. If it were me killing somebody and I failed, I'd be going after them again."
"Uh... thanks," said the boy, not seeming at all happy about that.
"I'm just saying," said Cinnamon defensively. "Besides, my dad was a great vampire and he was killed, so I meet some little kid who survived a curse as a baby, not all that impressed, but very bitter. I mean, how is that fair? Anyway," she said as the train tooted its own horn (much like she was prone to do), "we'd better get going. Brassi here'll sit with you if you need a friend, but as for me, I'm going off to find that blond-haired cutie pie I met at Madam Malkin's. Ta ta."
The girls got on the train and found compartments. Time passed. The Malfoy boy strutted into Cinnamon's compartment, looking petulant about something. Cinnamon didn't have to wait long to find out what.
"...thinks he can get on without my help, we'll see, father wants me to get along with him, wait till he hears..."
Cinnamon cleared her throat to indicate that she was there too.
"We meet again, Malfoy. Sit down. Let's talk, get to know each other better before school starts. You seem like you know a lot about it already..."
So they talked, each competing for longest monologue, each waiting for a pause in the other's speech during which they could interrupt. When the trolley came, Cinnamon got one of everything and paid for Draco's share too, as well as the two boys with him, just because she could. She changed unabashedly in front of them (because nymals don't really care about nudity or that sort of thing) into her school robes and stared out the window in fascination when they all stopped babbling about themselves. It was almost nightfall when they got to the school.
...and the author decided that since it was almost five in the morning, it was time to stop the chapter, upload it, and go to bed. Nighty night night, folks.